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Hello, soldierbill1. at end of casting session, while still hot. I use a wire hand brush on it. To clean pot, as well as ladels..with empty pot..if hot you might want to heat water to boiling first & fill pot to top..let boil for awhile & all crud will pour out..just be sure ladel/spoons are completly dry before sticking in molten lead!

I don't care about my skimmer spoon as long as the pot is clean, but if it really bothers you, you can get the crud off of it by getting it hot (like in your next casting session) and scrub around on it with the tip of your paint stick. That will get most of it, and a wire brush will get most of the rest.

Gear

You can't fix Stupid, but you can occasionally head it off before it hurts something. --Stephen Adams

To universalize one's experience and state it as the norm is always thin ice on which to stand.--CharGar

Being able to separate the wheat from the chaff has always been a valuable skill in all of life's activities. --Bwana

My ladleing (sp?) spoon is really funky looking right now. All kinds of crud on it, seems like she is gettin' a bit rusty too.

Any slick way of cleaning this spoon up?

thanks.

BTW: Nice idea on the paint stick stirrer for a flux. Works better than anything I have ever tried so far.

bill boy

Go to the nearest Dollar Tree and get a couple new ones. OOPs I just realized you said 'Ladleing". Sorry, they probably don't have them at Dollar Tree. I bought a couple of S/S spoons there to stir and scoop out the crud, and the lead doesn't stick to them.

I bought a couple of S/S spoons there to stir and scoop out the crud, and the lead doesn't stick to them.

Drill holes along one edge of the spoon. The lead will flow back into the pot. As for the dross sticking to ANY spoon, it's a nature of the beast for casting. I steel brush mine every now and then but it will continue to collect dross - more so if one uses excess bees wax as a flux

For the ladle, use it to stir the flux. The flux will clean the lead sticking to the cast iron of the ladle. Then just tap it on the side of the pot

Tapping the ladle on the edge of a cast iron pot may not be the best idea you ever had. Tapping on the edge of a cast pot may result in cracking the cast and pot failure. Try getting the crudded up ladle very hot and plunging it into very cold water. This will often loosen the crud so that it can be peeled off the ladle.

I use a stainless steel serving spoon and a 1970s vintage Lyman ladle. When good and hot I just wipe them quickly with a piece of dry heavy cloth. The inside of the ladle I scrape out with an old blade screwdriver; the spout I clean with an old drill bit.

Mostly I want the heavy crud off or out and the hole free flowing ... beauty is for boolits only.

In all the additions to this thread nobody has mentioned the danger involved with cleaning dross-spoons. (I cast with a turkey-cooker burner and thus the pot never accumulates any problematical dross)

It is my view that the junk that coats our spoons is most probably chock-full of lead oxide ~ you know; the stuff that is poisonous and can be readily metabolized by our bodies?

Don't scrub it off our spoon with a wire brush unless you're outside, it is a windy day and you are definitely UPWIND!

As for a wire-wheel on your bench grinder - within a confined space and no noticeable ventilation ~ forget it!

When my spoon gets fouled I heat it cherry red with my blow-torch (remaining up-wind). This dries out all the old flux and makes the junk cake quite fragile. Then, outside, in the wind, upwind, I scrape it off with a edged tool.

I just wait till it's good and hot and bang it on something solid... Most crud falls off...

Yep, this works fine. It'll clean my Lyman ladle back down to nice shiny new metal.

**NOTE!!- you are banging off red hot (700+ degree) stuff, which is mostly droplets of liquid metal with a little sand/dross/rust mixed in. Wear a glove and long sleeves and don't look at it while you're bangin'!

I use stainless steel spoons obtained at the Salvation Army store. One solid, one perforated. The perforated one is real handy when melting wheel weights and other things with lots of trash as it lets the lead run through. Also good for stirring the pot and scraping the crud off the side walls underneath the lead level. Once that is gone and I am dealing with just the powdery stuff the edge is fine for skimming.

I have a Lyman cast iron ladle, the kind with the little spout on the side, when stuff starts adhering I submerge it in pot of molten lead and when it's good and hot wipe the outside and the spout with heavy rough cloth , like burlap- wipe quickly. Then at end of a casting sesson , get it good and hot again and gently tap the round body, not the spout ,on my wood bench top. most of the crud falls off and out of the insides. Might do it twice if a lot of crud has gathered in the inside of the ladle.
Wiping the spout is the easiest and quickest way to keep the spout clean. But the Lyman design doesn't let you wipe out the insides easily so I do the heat and gentle tap. If you have a Lee open ladle the heat and wipe should clean the outside and inside.